Page 7 Bible Empires:Japheth
Library P N
2. THE SONS OF JAPHETH
THESE nationalities will be traced in the order in which they are given in Genesis
10.
The first people named are “the sons of Japheth,” and the first of these is -
GOMER - the Cimmerians
2. Apart from his genealogical relation there is no mention made of Gomer in the Scriptures, except in Ezekiel 38:6. There “Gomer and all his bands” are spoken of in connection with Togarmah, as being “of the north quarters.” To say nothing here as to the age of the world when this applies, - it being a prophecy and not history, - this passage proves that the place of Gomer and all his bands must be found to the north of the land of Palestine. This being the limit of the Scripture narrative regarding Gomer and his bands, any further information must be gathered from other sources.
3.
Among profane writers the first mention of the people of Gomer is by Homer, about 850 BC, who says: -
| “There in a lonely land, and gloomy cells, |
| The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells; |
| The sun ne’er views the uncomfortable seats, |
| When radiant he advances or retreats: |
| Unhappy race! whom endless night invades, |
| Clouds the dull air, and wraps them round in shades.” |
“Odyssey,” book xi, 15-20, Pope’s translation.
4.
The Cimmerians here named are the people of Gomer, only with a slight variation in the name, - Gomer-ians, Cimmerians, - and from 800 to 600 BC this people under the name of Cimmerii, Gimiri, or Gomerin, played no inconsiderable part in the affairs of western Asia. The land of darkness spoken of by Homer as the country of the Cimmerians was the northern coast of the Black Sea. There also is where AEschylus, about BC. 500, placed Cimmeria. And Herodotus, BC 484-424, says that
| “the land which is now inhabited by the Scyths, |
| was formerly the country of the Cimmerians;” |
and that
| “the mart of the Borysthenites . . . is situated in the very center of the whole seacoast of Scythia.” |
Book iv, chaps. iv, xvii.
The Borysthenites were the people who lived about the River Borysthenes, and the ancient Borysthenes is the modern Dnieper, that flows southward through Russia, and empties into the Black Sea just west of the Crimea.
5.
The Cimmerians possessed the whole northern coast of the Black Sea, and the country of the Ukraine, that is, the country watered by the River Dnieper and its tributaries. But in 650-600 BC, the Scythians, who covered the vast region above the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea, poured down upon the Cimmerians, and dispossessed them of their country. The main body of the Cimmerians moved toward the west, where we shall find them again (see page 21), while a small section moved down through the Caucasus Mountains into Asia Minor, and inflicted upon its people and provinces desolations such as had been brought upon themselves and their country by the Scythians. Many a predatory raid their race had made before in company with the Thracian tribes, but this was a perfect torrent of desolation.
6.
| “The Cimmerian invaders carried ruin and devastation over all the fairest regions of lower Asia. Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Ionia, Phrygia, even Cilicia, as well as Lydia, were plundered and laid waste; in Phrygia. Midas, the king, despairing of any effectual resistance, on the approach of the dreaded foe is said to have committed suicide; in Lydia, as we know from Herodotus, they took the capital city, all but the acropolis; in Ionia, they ravaged the valley of the Cayster, besieged Ephesus, and, according to some accounts, burnt the temple of Diana in its vicinity; after which they are thought to have proceeded southward into the plain of the Maeander, and to have sacked the city of Magnesia. One body, under a leader whom the Greeks called Lygdamis, even penetrated as far as Cilicia, and there sustained a terrible reverse at the hands of the hardy mountaineers. . . . Still the strength of the invaders was not broken by this defeat. It was only in the third generation that the Lydian princes were able to expel them from the territories under their dominion. Even then, it is a mistake to say that they were driven out of Asia. . . . The Cimmerians, long after the time of their expulsion from Lydia by Alyattes, maintained themselves in certain strongholds, as Antandrus, which, according to Aristotle, they occupied for a hundred years, and Sinope, where, Herodotus informs us, they made a permanent settlement. The history of Lydia during the time of their supremacy was almost a blank.” |
Rawlinson. Herodotus, Appendix to book i, essay i, sec. 14.
7.
Herodotus, speaking of his time, says:
| “Scythia still retains traces of the Cimmerians; there are Cimmerian castles, and a Cimmerian ferry, also a tract called Cimmeria, and a Cimmerian Bosphorus.” |
Book iv, chap. xii.
8.
In our day traces of them still remain in the name of the little peninsula that projects into the Black Sea on the north, the CRIMEA, and Crim Tartary, as well as in the Russian city Eski-Krim - Old Krim - “which marks the site of the ancient town of Cimmerium.” It is evident, therefore, that the country north of the Black Sea was the place of the Cimmerians, the people of Gomer: and the Crimea still bears testimony to the fact: Gomer, Gomerin, Gimiri, Cimmerii, Crimea.
MAGOG - The Scythians
9.
This name, like that of Gomer, is not mentioned in the Scriptures, apart from its genealogical relation, except in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and Revelation 20: 8. And, like Gomer, the land of Magog and his people is located northward from Palestine. Speaking of “Gog, the land of Magog,” Ezekiel 38:15 says:
| “And thou shall come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army.” |
There is an inscription of about 650 BC., by Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, in which occur the words, |
“Sariti and Payiza, sons of Gog, a chief of the Saka;”|
and the Saka were the Scythians.
10.
The Scythians, therefore, who inhabited the vast regions to the north of the Caspian Sea, and who drove out the Cimmerians and took possession of their country, were the people of Magog. By some of the successors of Alexander the Great, there was a wall built, called the Caucasian wall, which extended from the western shore of the Caspian Sea, at Derbend, almost to the eastern shore of the Black Sea. This wall was built as a defense against the inroads of the Scythian hordes, and is still called “the wall of Gog and Magog.”
11.
| “From the accounts found among the Arabians, Persians, and Syrians,. . . we learn that they comprehended under the designation Yajuj and Majuj all the less known barbarous people of the Northeast and Northwest of Asia.” |
Mc Clintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia, art. Magog.
12.
Of these peoples Ramband says: |
“Beyond the line of Greek colonies (about the northern coast of the Black Sea) dwelt a whole world of tribes, whom the Greeks designated by the common name of Scythians.”|
“History of Russia,” chap. ii, par. 2.
13.
Of the multitude of people who dwelt in this boundless region, the chief in the time of Herodotus were three distinct bodies of Scythians, properly so called.
14.
First, there were the “Scythian cultivators,” or “husbandmen,” who possessed the country drained by the Dnieper - the Ukraine - of which the Cimmerians had been dispossessed.
15.
Second, the Nomad or “Wandering Scythians, who neither plow nor sow.”
16.
Third, the Royal Scythians,
| “the largest and bravest of the Scythian tribes, which looks upon all the other tribes in the light of slaves.” |
These were of the same habits as the Wandering Scythians. Their principal seat was between the Dnieper and the Don.
17.
Besides these, there was a fourth division, composed of tribes that had revolted from the Royal Scythians, and dwelt upon the eastern sources of the Volga.
18.
| “The Nomads were the genuine Scythians, possessing the marked attributes of the race, and including among their number the Royal Scythians - hordes so much more populous and more effective in war than the rest, as to maintain undisputed ascendency, and to account all other Scythians no better than their slaves.” |
| “If the habits of the Scythians were such as to create in the near observer no other feeling than repugnance, their force at least inspired terror. They appeared in the eyes of Thucydides [BC. 471-429] so numerous and so formidable that he pronounces them irresistible, if they could but unite, by any other nation within his knowledge. Herodotus, too, conceived the same idea of a race among whom every man was a warrior and a practised horse-bow-man, and who were placed by their mode of life out of all reach of an enemy’s attack.” |
Grote. “History of Greece,” part ii, chap. xvii par. 17. 19.
19.
About 625 BC, after driving out the Cimmerians from the Ukraine, a torrent of the Scythians swept down by the Caspian Sea, and overran Media, Assyria, and Upper Mesopotamia, and continued westward even to the Jordan, where, on its western bank in the land of the half-tribe of Manasseh, the city of Bethshan was afterward called Scythopolis from its having been captured by the Scythians. They kept Media and Assyria in a state of terror for about fourteen years before they could be driven out.
20.
Nor was the country of the Scythians confined to the Dnieper, the Don, and the Volga; for when Alexander the Great, in his conquering march, reached the River Jaxartes - the present SyrDaria - at the seventieth degree of east longitude, he found Scythian warriors there to dispute his passage of that river; he crossed, nevertheless, and defeated them. In truth, the region of the Altai Mountains was about the center, from east to west, of the widespread people of Magog; for they extended from Europe to the Pacific Ocean. Of the principal divisions of the races that sprang from these, we may name at least nine.
21.
(1)
The ancient Mongols, or Mongolians, from whom came the Chinese and Indo-Chinese, the Siamese, the Anamese, the Burmese, the Cambodians, the Thibetans, the Japanese, and the aborigines of North and South America, from Alaska to Patagonia.
| “Says Fontaine: |
| ‘If a congregation of twelve men from Malacca, China, Japan, Mongolia, the South Sea Islands, Chili, Peru, Brazil, Chickasaws, and Comanches were dressed alike, or undressed and unshaven, the most skilful anatomist could not from their appearance separate them.’“ |
“Bricks from Babel,” chap. xi.
(2)
The Malays, who have peopled the Malay Peninsula, the Malay, or East Indian Archipelago, Madagascar, and the greater portion of the islands of the Pacific Ocean.
| “This astonishing expansion of the Malaysian peoples throughout the Oceanic area is sufficiently attested by the diffusion of a common Malayo-Polynesian speech from Madagascar to Easter Island and from Hawaii to New Zealand.” |
Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Malays.
(3) - The Huns
The Huns, whose “ancient and perhaps original seat” was in the country now called Mongolia, immediately north of the Great Wall of China; who in the early part of the third century before Christ had spread their power eastward to the Pacific at the extremity of Corea, westward to the River Irtysh, and northward to the extremity of Lake Baikal; and against whose inroads the Great Wall - 1500 miles long - was built to protect the territories of China. But this great wall was built in vain; for in 201 BC, the Huns swept over China and brought it under tribute till about 87 BC, when their power over China was broken. Their power then steadily declined till AD 93, when it was utterly destroyed in the east by the rise of the Sienpi. In AD 375 they poured into Europe, and under Attila, AD 433-453, their power was established from the Danube to the Ural, and from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea.
24.
At the death of Attila, their power was broken, their empire was destroyed, and they were driven back into the Scythian steppes, in the country of the Volga and the Ural. Their modern representatives are the Bulgarians proper, numbering about 1,500,000 people.
| “It may be considered, as M. Zeuss has shown, as an historical fact, that the Bulgarians were the remains of the Hunns, who, after their defeat on the death of Attila, retreated to the banks of the Wolga and the plains, extending from Bolgari Wolga or Volga, Wolgari, Bolgari, Bulgari, Bulgarians to the Euxine. From that country, called, as we have seen, Great Bulgaria, issued the hordes of Bulgarians who, at a later period, crossed the Danube and established the Bulgarian kingdom.” |
Prichard, “Physical History of Mankind,” Vol. iv, chap xvi, sec. vi par. 1.
(4)
The modern Mongols, or Moguls, who, under Jenghiz Khan, or Zingis Khan, and his sons, AD. 1162-1241, established their empire from the China Sea to the borders of Moravia; almost repeated it under Tamerlane, AD. 1361-1405; and who still remain, in the country and nation of Mongolia.
(5)
The Tartars, who, under the name of Sienpi, broke the power of the Huns in AD 93; who led the vanguard in the great Mogul invasion of Europe, AD 1238; and whose name still remains in the Uzbeck, Kalmuck, and Crim, or Crimea, Tartars.
(6)
The Turks, Turkmans, or Turcomans, who early in the Christian era emigrated from Central Asia to the northern country about the Caspian and Aral Seas. In AD 997-1028 Mahmud, the first who bore the title of “sultan,” began a career of conquest that has made the name and nation of the Turks one among the most famous in history, and now a source of constant jealousy and contention among the nations of Europe.
(7)
The Finns, who in five groups have peopled the following countries:
(a) The Finns proper, in Finland and the Baltic provinces of Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland;
(b) the Lapps, in Lapland and parts of northern Sweden and Norway;
(c) the Permian Finns, in the northern habitable portion of Russia proper;
(d) the Volga Finns, on both banks, and the branches of the Upper Volga;
(e) the Ugrian Finns, between the Ural Mountains and the Yenisei River above the fifty-ninth degree north latitude, and in Hungary. For it was from the tribes of Ugrian Finns that the Magyars came, who in the ninth century were such a scourge to eastern Europe, and who in 889 and onward finally settled in what is now Hungary (Ugri, Wengri, Ungri, Ungari, Hungari, Hungary).
Besides these there are, of the Ugrain Finns, the Esquimaux of North America.
(8)
The Sarmatians, who sprung from the Royal Scythians, and who in the days of Herodotus dwelt east of the Don. Before the end of the first century of the Christian era, they had spread their name over all eastern Europe, from the River Volga to the Baltic Sea; and their name was even extended to the Baltic itself, that sea being then called the Sarmatian Ocean. Tacitus says that in his time Germany was “separated from Sarmatia and Dacia, by mountains and mutual dread.” From the Sarmatians are descended the Slavonians who have peopled Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Servia, and other provinces of lesser note, in those regions.
(9)
The Parthians, who gave name to the country of Parthia, in central Asia. They were subdued by the great Cyrus, and their country became one of the most important provinces of the Medo Persian Empire. They regained their independence about 250 BC, by a successful revolt from the rule of Antiochus Theos, one of the “successors” of Alexander the Great. The leader in the revolt was named Arsaces, and that name was assumed as the kingly title by all his successors, as in Egypt “Pharaoh” was used in early times, and “Ptolemy” in later. The kingdom thus established went forward in a continuous course of success until it became an empire ruling “all the lands of central Asia,” “from the Indian Caucasus to the Euphrates,” and continued four hundred and seventy-eight years, from BC 250 to AD 228. By inflicting two terrible defeats upon the Roman armies, - the defeat of Crassus at Carrhae, BC 53, and the defeat of Macrinus at Nisibis, AD 217 and 218, - they
| “forced the arrogant Romans to respect them, and to allow that there was at least one nation which could meet them on equal terms and not be worsted in the encounter;” |
and by a contest of nearly three hundred years they
| “obtained recognition . . . as the second power in the world, the admitted rival of Rome, the only real counterpoise upon the earth to the power which ruled from the Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean.” |
Rawlinson. “Seven Great Monarchies,” Sixth Mon., chap xi, par. 19.
In AD 228 the power of the Parthians was permanently broken by the rise of the Persian Artaxerxes, the son of Sasan, who established the New Persian or Sassanian Empire.
31.
All these are the people of Magog, and it will be seen at a glance that “the land of Magog” is the steppe country of northern Asia, and is now represented in the Russian possessions, which stretch from the borders of Germany to the Pacific Ocean.
MADAI
32.
From Madai came the Medes, whose country lay immediately southeast of the Caspian Sea; in whose subject cities were placed the captives of the ten tribes taken by Sargon, king of Assyria, about 720 BC who, joined with the Persians, destroyed the kingdom of Babylon, 538 BC, and established the MedoPersian Empire, that continued till 331 BC., when it was destroyed by Alexander the Great.
| “That Madai is synonymous with the Medes is certain. He represents the great jIranian family which holds so important a place among the Japhetic and Arian populations.” |
Lenormant. “Manual,” etc., book i, chap iii, sec, iii, par. 11.
JAVAN - The Greeks
33.
From Javan came the Greeks; for in the Hebrew, Daniel. 8: 21 reads “king of Javan;” 10:20 “prince of Javan;” and 11:2 “realm of Javan;” instead of “king,” “prince,” and “realm” of “Grecia” or “Greece.” The Revised Version gives Javan in the margin of each of these places.
34.
| “This name, or its analogue, is found as a designation of Greece not only in all the Shemitic dialects, but also in the Sanscrit, the Old Persic, and the Egyptian, and the form Iaones appears in Homer as the designation of the early inhabitants of Attica. . . . The occurrence of the name in the cuneiform inscriptions of the time of Sargon, in the form of Yavnan, or Yunan, as descriptive of the isle of Cyprus, where the Assyrians first came in contact with the power of the Greeks, further shows that its use was not confined to the Hebrews, but was widely spread throughout the East.” |
Mc Clintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia, art. Javan.
35.
The name of Grecia embraced Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, Acarnania, AEtolia, Locris, Doris, Phocis, Boeotia, Euboea, Attica, Megaris, Corinthia, Achaia, Elis, Arcadia, Argolis, Messene, and Laconia. And this is the country of Javan. Under Alexander the Great the people of Javan spread their empire over all countries from the Adriatic Sea to the River Hyphasis, and their power was recognized by all known nations of the world. Out of Javan, also, went the people who inhabited Italy, and who, under the name of Rome, grew to such power that “to be a Roman was greater than to be a king,” and who spread their iron empire over all the world.
36.
Javan had four sons - Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.
37. Elishah - AEolians
Elishah was the father of the AEolians, who inhabited parts of Thessaly, Boeotia, AEtolia, Locris, Elis, and Messene, and formed the first great body of Grecian colonists that established themselves on the coast of Asia Minor.
| “Elishah is Hellas; that is, Greece.” |
Lenormant, “Manual,” etc., book i, chap iii, sec. iii, par. 12.
38.
Tarshish. - The people and country of Tarshish were far off from Palestine, and toward the west. For we read that under Solomon
| “the king’s ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram; every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.” |
Huram was Hiram, king of Tyre. Tyre lay on the Mediterranean, and for ships to go from Tyre to Tarshish in a voyage of three years they would have to go west. Again, Jonah was commanded to go from Palestine to Nineveh, which was on the Tigris away to the northeast. But Jonah refused to go, and rose up to flee “from the presence of the Lord.” As his purpose was to escape going to Nineveh, it would be the most natural thing to flee in the opposite direction as far as possible. So we read that
“Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”
Joppa also was on the Mediterranean and was then the principal port of Palestine. In Isaiah 66:19 Tarshish is named with other places and isles, that were “afar off.” In Ezekiel 27:12, the Lord says to Tyre,
| “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.” |
39.
All these evidences make it positive that Tarshish was “afar off” to the west from Palestine; that it was reached by ships; and that it was so largely devoted to shipping as to be almost proverbial. Tartessus, which lay at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, in Spain, was the chief seat of Tarshish, the son of Javan. Thus the ships of Tartessus (Tarshish) could gather silver from the rich mines of Spain; tin from the mines of Cornwall in Britain; ivory, apes, and peacocks from Africa; and make the voyage once in three years from Tyre and back again. Lenormant allows that the Tyrrhenians of Italy may also have been the children of Tarshish. It is certain that they were the descendants of Javan.
40. Kittim - Cyprus
Kittim, or Chittim, the third of the sons of Javan, inhabited the islands of the Grecian archipelago, Cyprus, and even others of the Mediterranean Sea, and Corea at the southeast corner of Asia Minor. Isaiah 23:1, 12 shows that Chittim was a resting-place for the ships of Tarshish; Jeremiah. 2:10 and Ezekiel 27:6 speak of “the isles of Chittim;” and Daniel. 11:30 speaks of “the ships of Chittim;” all showing that Chittim was in the isles of the Mediterranean Sea.
41.
Dodanim was the ancestor of the Dardanians, one portion of whom dwelt in a tract called from them Dardania, in the neighborhood of ancient Troy, on the southern coast of the Sea of Marmora. Another, and the main body, people Illyria, or Illyricum, the country bordering on the Adriatic Sea opposite Italy. From there some of their tribes went into Italy, of whom the Liburni and the Veneti are particularly mentioned.
| “The celebrated name of Venetia was diffused over a large and fertile province of Italy, from the confines of Pannonia to the River Addua, and from the Po to the Rhaetian and Julian Alps.” |
Gibbon. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” chap. xxxv, par. 13.
When Attila invaded Italy, AD 453, spreading devastation everywhere,
| “many families of Aquileia, Padua, and the adjacent towns, who fled from the sword of the Huns, found a safe though obscure refuge in the neighboring islands.” |
Id.
There and by these, the city of Venice was afterward built.
TUBAL
42.
Tubal, mentioned in Ezekiel 38:2, 3 and 39:1, in connection with Magog, and in Ezekiel 27:13 is associated with those who traded in the Tyrian fairs, in persons of men (slaves) and vessels of brass; and is placed in the “north parts” the same as Gomer and Magog, whom we have already identified. This would show that Tubal belongs to the same region of country as those. The people of Tubal are mentioned by the Assyrian kings, in their inscriptions, by the name Tuplai, and were found by them in Cappadocia. There was in the northwest a large number of their tribes, and they were apparently of considerable importance in the wars of the Assyrian kings. They seem to have been spread over the most of the country from Cilicia to the Black Sea. By Herodotus and other Greek writers they are called Tibareni. At the time of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, 400 BC, some of their tribes were an independent people, dwelling on the southern coast of the Black Sea, west of Colchis, and it required a two-days’ march to cross their country. Some of their tribes went west, and as Iberians peopled Spain and Sicily; and an important body of them went north with Meshech, who comes next in the list.
MESHECH - Muskai
43.
In the Scriptures Meshech and Tubal are always mentioned together, with a single exception. They are named, and can be traced, in the Assyrian inscriptions “from the commencement of the twelfth to the middle of the seventh century BC.” In these inscriptions they are called Muskai, and are placed in the vicinity of the Tuplai, with whom they are constantly associated, as in the Bible. By Herodotus they are called Moschi, and are always mentioned in connection with the Tibareni - Meshech and Tubal. Their troops and those of the Tibareni were under the same commander in the great expedition of Xerxes against Athens, 484-479 BC. The country of Meshech - the Moschi - was in Cappadocia, Colchis, and Armenia, about what is now the vicinity of Kars and Erzeroum. Those of the people of Meshech and Tubal who dwelt there were not all that there were of either nation; for, about 650 BC, the Cappadocians, a people of Persian origin, forced their way into the country of the Moschi and Tibareni, and pressed them back to narrow limits on the Black Sea and about the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, and some of both peoples crossed the Caucasus into the steppe country on the north - Scythia, now the Russian possessions. There the Moschi become known as Muskovs and then
| “Muscovites, who built Moscow and who still give name to Russia Moscovy throughout the East.” |
Rawlinson. Herodotus, Appendix to book i, essay xi, par. v, under 5.
(The Tibareni - people of Tubal, - who went with the Moschi - people of Meshech, - settled on, and gave name to, the River Tobol and the place Tobolsk, another portion of the Russian possessions, east of the Ural Mountains. There is name so intimately associated with these last two that, although it is not mentioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis, it ought not to be passed by. In Ezekiel 38: 2,3 and 39:1, King James’s Version of the Scriptures reads: “Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal” -, “prince of the chief,” etc. But the Revised Version reads, “Gog, the land of Magog, the prince of Rush, Meshech, and Tubal.” From this “Rosh” comes the modern name and nation of the Russians (Rosh, Roas, Rouss, Russ, Russians; or Rosh, Rous, Rossia, Rossiane).
| “Gesenius considers it beyond doubt that by Rosh is intended the tribe on the north of the Taurus, so called from the neighborhood to the Rha, or Volga, and that in this name and tribe we have the first trace of the Russ, or Russian nation.” |
Smith’s Bible Dictionary
| “This early Biblical notice of so great an empire is doubly interesting from its being a solitary instance.” |
McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia.
We have already seen that “the land of Magog.” through his descendants, comprises the entire country of northern Asia from Germany to the Pacific Ocean. This prophecy of Ezekiel refers in some way to the last days (38:2,3,8,16), and shows that then Russia and the prince of Russia, will be the chief of all that country, and that Meshech and Tubal would also dwell in the land of Magog under its Russian chief. So that 587 years BC., the prophet of God pointed out the Russian Empire as it exists to-day. The Scripture is given by inspiration of God.)
TIRAS - Thracians
44.
Tiras was the ancestor of the Thracians.
| “Thiras called those whom he ruled over, Thirasians; but the Greeks changed the name into Thracians.” |
Josephus. “Antiquities,” book i, chap. vi, par. 1.
Herodotus declared of them in his day that
| “the Thracians are the most powerful people in the world, except, of course, the Indians (the people of India, he says, were “more numerous than any other nation with which we are acquainted” - iii, 94) and if they had one head, or were agreed among themselves, it is my belief that their match could not be found anywhere and that they would far surpass all other nations. |
| But such union is impossible for them, and there are no means of ever bringing it about. Herein, therefore, consists their weakness. The Thracians bear many names in the different regions of their country, but all of them have like usages in every respect, excepting only the Getae, the Trausi, and those who dwell above the people of Creston.” |
Book v, chap iii.
45.
It is impossible to tell how many tribes there were of the Thracians, but more than fifty are known. They extended from the River Halys in Asia Minor over the greater part of Asia Minor, and westward over Thrace and Maesia to the Rivers Save and Drave in Europe. The Thynians and Bithynians, the Phrygians and Mysians, the Paphlagonians and Mariandynians of Asia Minor, were all of Thracian nationality. Of the Thracians in Europe, the tribes are too numerous to attempt to mention here. They were so powerful that in 429 BC the king of one of the tribes, the Odrysae, re-enforced by the Paeonians, invaded Macedonia at the head of 150,000 men, of whom 50,000 were cavalry. In the time of Strabo, who lived from 57 BC till 21 AD, their military strength was estimated at 200,000 foot and 15,000 horse. This, in spite of the weakness caused by the disunion of which Herodotus speaks.
46.
The most notable of their tribes were the Odrysoe already mentioned; the Triballi, with whom Alexander the Great warred before he started for Persia; the Daci, who peopled the country of Dacia, north of the Danube, which was conquered by the Romans in a war of five years and reduced to a province, AD 104, but was afterward abandoned to the Goths, AD 272; the Moesi, who inhabited the country immediately south of the Danube, which from them was called Maesia and corresponded to what is now Servia and Bulgaria. It was made a Roman province about 16 BC.
47. Getoe - the Goths
Besides these, and most notable of all, were the Getoe, from whom came the Goths, who acted so great a part in the destruction of the Roman Empire. In the Scythian expedition of Darius Hystaspes, 515 BC, the Getae were encountered, and their country was crossed, before he reached the Danube. As early as the days of Cyrus the great, a branch of the Getae, called Massagetoe, that is, “greater Getae” - greater Goths - pronounced by Herodotus “a great and warlike nation,” inhabited the Steppe country east of the Caspian Sea; and west of them dwelt another branch called the Thyssagetoe, that is “lesser Getae” - lesser Goths. In the time of Herodotus the principal seat of the Thyssagetae was west of the main stream of the Upper Volga. Several centuries before the Christian era, a body composed apparently of both the lesser and the greater Goths - Thyssagetoe and Massagetoe - migrated westward to the Baltic, and fixed their abode in the southern part of Sweden, where there remained a kingdom of Gothia until the twelfth century, when, in 1161, the crowns of both Sweden and Gothia were united on the head of Charles Swerkerson, “who assumed the title of King of the Swedes and the Goths, which his successors bear to this day.” The southern point of Sweden still bears the name of Gothland. It was from this Gothland, and about the beginning of the Christian era, that a large body of Goths crossed the Baltic, and as Ostro-(Eastern) Goths, Visi-(Western) Goths, Gepidae, - loiterers, because they lagged behind while crossing the sea, - and perhaps the Heruli and Vandals, settled about the mouth of the River Vistula, whence they spread to the Black Sea and overwhelmed the Roman Empire.
48.
Of the people of Japheth there yet remain to be mentioned the three grandsons, Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.
49.
Ashkenaz is mentioned by Jeremiah, 595 BC., among the kingdoms that should assist in the destruction of Babylon, and is named in a connection that would show that his place was in the neighborhood of Armenia.
| “Prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz.” |
Jeremiah 51: 27.
The people of Ashkenaz inhabited the country answering to the Bithynia of ancient times, on the southern coast of the Euxine, or Black Sea. The Euxine Sea received its name from the name Ashkenaz, and was called first the Sea of Ashkenaz, and from that, As-chunis, then Axenus, and lastly Euxine, by which it is known in ancient history. The name of Ashkenaz still remains in the name of the Lake Ascanius in the northwestern part of Asia Minor.
50. Gauls - The Celts
Riphath is found, in his descendants, in the neighborhood of the Riphaean Mountains, now the Carpathians. From Riphath, the son of Gomer, came one branch of the Celts known as Gauls, who peopled the country of Gaul. From Gaul they spread into the northern part of Spain, where their memory long remained in the name Gallicia. They also made two great invasions of Italy; the first in the fifteenth century BC, and the second in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, when they took possession of all the northern part of the country to the River Po. This part of Italy was then, from them, called by the Latins Gallia Cisalpina - Gaul within the Alps; while Gaul itself was called Gallia Transalpina - Gaul beyond the Alps. In 387 BC they took Rome, and burnt it to the ground. A division of these from the north of Italy went on eastward around the head of the Adriatic into the countries between that sea and the River Danube. In 279 BC a great body of them swept over Macedonia and northern Greece, on through Thrace and across the Hellespont, 277 BC; and finally settled in the country which from them was called Galatia. To their descendant, the apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians.
51.
The Gauls (Celts) also peopled Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and the islands round about: it is not known at what date.
52.
It will be remembered that in the account of Gomer himself, it was stated (page 7) that when the Scythians, 650-600 BC, dispossessed the Cimmerians of the country of the Ukraine, the Cimmerians went toward the west, where we should find them again. We must now follow these onward. They took possession of the country that is now northern Germany and Denmark, and afterward accompanied their kindred of the children of Riphath in their invasions of Italy. The Cimbri (for so the Cimmerii were then called) and the Gauls form the two branches of the great Celtic race, and both are often referred to by Roman writers as Gauls. In the time of Alexander the Great all western Europe above the River Po and the Pyrenees Mountains, and from the plains of the Drave and the Save to the Baltic Sea, was possessed by these two branches of Celts. And when Alexander the Great held, at Babylon, “the States-general of the world,” there came ambassadors from the Celts among those who desired “to propitiate his favor, to celebrate his greatness, or to solicit his protection.”
53. Ashchenaz - Scandinavia
Somewhere about two or three hundred years before Christ, another great migration from the East brought to the coast of the Baltic the Teutons and Scandinavians, the descendants of Ashchenaz. Part of them crossed the Baltic, and gave the name of Ashchenaz, As-chunis, Scandia, Scandinavia, to the peninsula of Norway and Sweden. The Teutons remained on the south coast of the Baltic, and became the Teutsch, Deutschen, the Germans. Finally they filled all the country between the Baltic and the Upper Danube; and crowded the Cimmerians into the peninsula of Jutland (Denmark) which from them was called the Cimbric Chersonesus. In 113 BC. a host of Cimbri and Teutons, numbering 300,000 fighting men, carried terror into Italy and southern Gaul, defeated the Romans three times, and compelled the Roman army to pass under the yoke, 107 BC., but were finally annihilated by the Romans under Marius, 101 BC. From these Germans came the Franks, the Alemanni, the Burgundians, the Lombards, the Suevi, and the Anglo-Saxons, who participated in the ruin and division of Western Rome.
54.
From the Cimbric Chersonesus - Danish peninsula - the Cimbri crossed the sea to Britain, and took possession of a great part of the country, which before them had been filled by the Gallic Celts, and their name has descended to us in the name of the English county of Cumber-land, Cimbri-land, Cimbrland, Cumber-land. In AD 449 the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, from the mouth of the Elbe and the Danish peninsula, following the same course that the Cimbri had taken before them, crossed the sea and took possession of Britain. Then of such of the Cimbri as escaped their savage rage, some fled across the channel to Brittany, where they still speak the Cimbric language; while the rest drew back into Wales, where they still remain and call themselves not Welsh but Cymry, and call their country not Wales but Cambria. Thus the Irish, the Scotch Highlanders, and the people of the Isle of Man, are Gallic Celts descended from Riphath, the son of Gomer; the Welsh are Cimric Celts, descended through the Cimmerians from Gomer himself; and the English proper, the Anglo-Saxons, are descended through the Teutons, from Ashchenaz, the son of Gomer.
55. Togermah - The Armenians
Togarmah, the last of the sons of Gomer, is found in the country and the nation of the Armenians. All the legends and the histories of the Armenians show them to be the descendants of Togarmah. Moses of Chorene, a native Armenian, and who, in AD 481, wrote a history of Armenia, says the name of their progenitor was Thargamas. The Armenians
“still call themselves ‘the house of Thorgom,’ the very phrase used by Ezekiel.” Ezekiel 38:6; 27:14.
The house of Togarmah traded in the fairs of Tyre with “horses and horsemen and mules,” and Armenia “was famed of old for its breed of horses.” Under the Persian rule
| “the satrap of Armenia sent yearly to the Persian court 20,000 foals for the feast of Mithras.” |
Besides the Armenians proper, the Georgians, Lesghians, Mingrelians, and Caucasians, are all descended from one common progenitor, Thargamas, who is Togarmah, the son of Gomer, the son of Japheth.
And so closes the list of the people of Japheth.
Page 7 Bible Empires:Origin of Nations
Library P N
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